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Friday, August 31, 2012

Fair Game - Patricia Briggs

They say opposites attract. And in the case of werewolves Anna Latham and Charles Cornick, they mate. The son-and enforcer-of the leader of the North American werewolves, Charles is a dominant alpha. While Anna, an omega, has the rare ability to calm others of her kind.

Now that the werewolves have revealed themselves to humans, they can't afford any bad publicity. Infractions that could have been overlooked in the past must now be punished, and the strain of doing his father's dirty work is taking a toll on Charles.

Nevertheless, Charles and Anna are sent to Boston, when the FBI requests the pack's help on a local serial killer case. They quickly realize that not only the last two victims were werewolves-all of them were. Someone is targeting their kind. And now Anna and Charles have put themselves right in the killer's sights...

I really enjoy Patricia Briggs novels and after reading the latest in the Mercy Thompson series I was looking forward to start the next in the Alpha and Omega series. And happily there is much to love in Fair Game not only for fantasy lovers but also for mystery lovers.

Charles, being his father's justice enforcer, is suffering the effects of having so many deaths on his hands. Although what he does is to apply justice that doesn't make him feel any better when the ghosts of those he killed start haunting him. To prevent Anna from suffering along with him he keeps their bond closed...

Anna is unhappy that Charles is suffering so and tries to reason with Bran about it. Eventually Bran decides to send her, with Charles tagging along, to Boston to investigate a series of murders that, if not well explained, might bring the werewolves a bad reputation and make the humans rebel against them. Since Bran is trying to do his best to make humans trust them this is a pretty sensitive matter. Hopefully this will keep Charles occupied in a good way.

I am a big fan of the world Briggs created for these characters but I have to confess that what I enjoyed the most in this story was precisely the police procedural aspect. How they follow the clues, how they investigate who the victims were, how they enlist the help of other species (or other races?) in their investigation and how it is shown that, while not always easy, cooperation and team work can be achieved and everyone can actually get along with each other. It's soon obvious that a serial killer has been at work in the area and that the victims may have been more than what was initially thought.

I really had fun seeing how people, namely the special agents, didn't take Anna too serious in the beginning but later realised that she was a force to be reckoned with. How everyone was a bit wary of Charles and how funny it was when Brother Wolf was in charge. I also liked the characters we meet in this book, Leslie, Isaac, Alistair... I sure hope we get to see more of them in the future. I really liked having more Bran in this story; hopefully Briggs will start to give him more space.

In the end it was good to see that werewolves, humans and fae can all work together to fight and punish the bad guy(s). The final twist did come as a complete surprise and I can't wait to see what the next story will bring.